Institute for Systematic Botany Sponsor Page - ISB: Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants

USF Herbarium

The USF Herbarium was established as a research and teaching collection in 1958, two years after the founding of the University of South Florida.

Location

The USF Herbarium is located in rooms 170-179 of the Life Sciences Building (LIF), on the Tampa Campus of the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.

Phone: (813) 974-6238
Fax: (813) 974-3557

Mailing Address:
The Herbarium
Department of Biology
University of South Florida
4202 E. Fowler Ave, SCA 110
Tampa, FL 33620-5200

Hours

The Herbarium is normally open Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, except for holidays and subject to staff availability. To avoid any inconvenience, please contact the Herbarium staff prior to your visit.

Collections

The USF Herbarium, with more than 250,000 specimens, is the second largest collection in Florida, the seventh largest in the southeastern United States, and ranks in the upper third of the world's herbaria in size.

Area of Taxonomic and Geographic Concentration

The collection consists of more than 220,000 specimens of vascular plants, 17,000 algae, and 2,000 bryophytes and lichens. The collection is richest in plants from Florida (40%), with strong holdings from North America north of Mexico (37%) and Latin America (13%). It has the largest collection in the world of materials from central and southern Florida. One important collection is the approximately 5,800 Orchidaceae, second only in the southeastern United States to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, an institution specializing in epiphytic plants (including Orchidaceae). Another significant collection is several thousand specimens from Nepal and Burma, an area not well represented in US Herbaria. Specific groups well represented include Apocynaceae, Arecaceae (palms), Fabaceae (Leguminosae), and pteridophytes (ferns), these reflecting the primary research interests of the past and present staff. The collection contains more than 300 vascular plant type specimens.

Important Collections

Important collections include those of G. R. Cooley, O. Lakela, R. W. Long, J. D. Ray, Jr., Steve L. Orzell, Edwin L. Bridges, B. F. Hansen, J. M. Kunzer, and R. P. Wunderlin.

Library

The Herbarium Library contains more than 10,000 books, reprints and journals, an extensive map collection, and a microfiche collection. The Library is open during most hours that the Herbarium is open. Although materials are not allowed to leave the Library, visitors are welcome to use the materials here. For more information, or to arrange a visit, please contact the Herbarium staff. The Herbarium Library holdings are in the USF Libraries Catalog (www.lib.usf.edu)

Services

The Herbarium is available for use by qualified individuals. Specimens are available on loan to recognized botanical institutions engaged in taxonomic research. A plant identification service based on monetary donations is provided to various companies, agencies, and individuals not part of USF and not involved in systematic research; contact B. Hansen or R. Wunderlin for more information. For further details regarding our use and loan policies, click here.

Staff

Director:
Richard P. Wunderlin, Ph.D.
Phone: (813) 974-2359
Fax: (813) 974-3557
Email:rwunder@cas.usf.edu
Research interests: Bauhinia (Fabaceae); Cucurbitaceae; Flora of Florida

Curator:
Bruce F. Hansen, Ph.D.
Phone: (813) 974-6238
Fax: (813) 974-3557
Email:hansen@cas.usf.edu
Research interests: Apocynaceae; Flora of Florida

Data Entry Technicians:
Bob Upcavage, B.S.
Phone: (813) 974-7602
Fax: (813) 974-3557
Email: bob@ecollc.biz

Alan Franck, B.S.
Phone: (813) 974-7602
Fax: (813) 974-3557
Email: afranck@mail.usf.edu

Associated Research Staff

Clinton J. Dawes, Ph.D.
Phone: (813) 974-2060
Email:cdawes@cas.usf.edu
Research interests: Physiological ecology and structure of seaweeds and seagrasses.

Frederick B. Essig, Ph.D.
Phone: (813) 974-6234
Email:essig@cas.usf.edu
Research interests: Palm flora of New Guinea; systematics of Clematis (Ranunculaceae), carnivorous plants.

Research

Current research projects at the Institute for Systematic Botany include the Flora of Florida, Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants, monographic and systematic studies, and ethnobotanical studies.

For more information, contact: Dr. Richard Wunderlin or Dr. Bruce Hansen

Web Development: | The Florida Center for Community Design + Research

A member of the University of South Florida family of PlantAtlas.org websites

Citation Information:

Wunderlin, R. P., and B. F. Hansen. 2008. Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/).[S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), Florida Center for Community Design and Research.] Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa.

Search Help

Select the criterion by which you wish to search (Scientific name, Genus, Family, etc.) and enter that information into the provided field.

Hint: Correct spelling is necessary for desired results, but because this function is a string search the full name need not be entered. Any correct part of a taxon name can be entered and a choice of the correct one made from the small list of resulting matches.

For example, matching the full name exactly in a Scientific Name search for Piptochaetium avenacioides may be difficult, but strings of either tium aven or avenaci or m avenac or pipto will all result in very small lists of matches. The intended name can then be chosen from any of those lists. Usually, the last letter (or two) of a given genus, a space, and the first few correct letters of the specific epithet will provide a sufficiently short list containing the desired taxon.

A similar example in a Common Name search is Virginia snakeroot. Searching using "snake root" will yield no results due to the extra space, but searching "snake" will generate a short list of plants with the word "snake" in the common name. Furthermore, a search of "Virginia snake" or even "nia snak" yields one result: Virginia snakeroot.

If, after following the above advice, then difficulties are still encountered please use the "browse" feature.

Definition: Vouchered Specimen

A voucher specimen is a pressed and thoroughly dried plant sample deposited in a herbarium, and is intended to be a permanent record supporting research purposes. A voucher may be a record of a plant's occurrence in a particular area, or a specific example of a plant used in a scientific investigation.

Proper vouchers display all the necessary attributes for complete identification of the plant, and are to be accompanied by accurate locality, habitat, collection time, and collector data.

Only plant populations vouchered by specimens deposited in Index Herbariorum http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp recognized herbaria are represented on this map.